Humane shuts down the AI Pin and sells out to HP for $116M

Remember the AI Pin? The hyped-up wearable from former Apple designers that was supposed to replace your smartphone is officially dead.

Humane just announced it is selling most of its assets to HP for $116 million. Alongside the sale, the startup is permanently killing the AI Pin, leaving existing customers with little more than a high-tech paperweight.

A $700 brick by the end of the month

According to Humane's support documentation, existing AI Pins will only function until February 28 at 3 PM ET. After that exact minute, the devices will lose connection to Humane's servers for good.

That means calling, texting, cloud access, and all AI queries will completely shut off. Users are being urged to download their stored photos, videos, and notes immediately before they are wiped permanently.

Once the servers go dark, Humane confirmed the only thing the Pin will still be able to do is check its own battery level.

Refunds are remarkably limited. Humane is only offering refunds to buyers who are still within their 90-day return window, and requests must be submitted by February 27, 2025. Anyone who paid ahead for subscriptions will get a prorated refund, and users still waiting on replacement charging cases after last year's recall will receive partial refunds after the cutoff.

From a $1B dream to HP's printer division

It is a stunning collapse for a gadget that debuted with a flashy TED talk and massive investor backing. When the Pin launched in April 2024, reviewers tore it to shreds. David Pierce wrote that it just doesn’t work, while MKBHD famously labeled it the worst product he had ever reviewed.

Sales plummeted immediately. By August, daily returns reportedly outpaced purchases, leading to emergency price cuts by October.

Humane initially went hunting for a buyer with an ambitious $1 billion price tag. HP managed to scoop up the wreckage for barely a tenth of that.

In exchange for $116 million, HP is acquiring Humane’s CosmOS operating system, technical staff, and over 300 patents. Co-founders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno will lead a new internal division called HP IQ, tasked with embedding AI into personal computers, connected conference gear, and yes, printers.

Why it matters

We think the AI Pin disaster serves as a definitive tombstone for the first wave of standalone AI gadgets that tried to kill the smartphone.

For early adopters, it is the ultimate buyer-beware scenario. It proves once again that cloud-tethered hardware carries an existential flaw: when the startup runs out of cash, your device turns into literal e-waste overnight without even basic offline utility.

For HP, picking up 300 patents and seasoned Apple-vetted talent for $116 million is a relatively cheap acqui-hire. But turning a failed ambient wearable OS into something useful for office printers and enterprise laptops looks like a massive stretch.

Ultimately, the tech industry has learned a hard lesson. Consumers do not want slow, overheating voice-only trinkets pinned to their shirts when their existing phones already run multimodal models faster, cheaper, and with a screen that actually works.